Sept - Oct 2004
If the Middle East insurance market is to achieve the potential that it often claims, then it is vital that it recognises international practices and standards. Regulation compliance and training are two areas which must be examined, and with new systems available, such as those from Saba systems to help with such matters, companies will soon have few excuses for being left behind.

Regulation and training are two 'buzz' words that have been associated with the Middle East insurance market for some time. Whether it is the continuous debate on how stringent supervision of the industry should be or how employees within the sector can achieve internationally recognised standards of business practice, they are aspects which are going to be vital in the progress of the regional industry. Therefore, it will be of great interest to many companies in the region to discover the emergence of a system aimed at tackling these precise subjects.

The Saba system is a provider of human capital development and management (HCDM) solutions and has already created a presence for itself in the Middle East with the likes of Cisco and Schlumberger utilising its services. But many will not be aware of just what these services entail and how they may be of benefit to the insurance sector. The services provided by Saba are multiple but its main objective is to provide organisations with the electronic systems and framework that will enable it to meet the complex demands of regulatory compliance--managing qualification schemes, delivering blended learning solutions, implementing re-certification schemes upon changes in operating procedures and responding to regulator inquiries or audits--no matter what the field of business.

Regional market

"There is great potential for the product in the Middle East," says Macy Moshiry, general manager of MINA Solutions--the exclusive authorised distributor of Saba in the Middle East. "Regional challenges such as localisation, volatility of the job market and the recruitment and retention of staff can all be addressed by HCDM. HCDM solutions enable a diverse group of employees to perform at the same levels quickly and efficiently through the development of enterprise performance and learning solutions. It indicates to candidates that as an employer you are committed to their development which is one of the key drivers of employee motivation and in turn performance.

"Saba HCDM solutions provide best economies of scale in the Large Enterprises Sector for enterprise employee numbers of 500 or more; this figure however also includes employees in the extended enterprise; company own employees, channel partners, clients and suppliers," she says.

Vertical markets

The system is designed to work across all industries and Saba has experience of implementing HCDM across a full range of vertical markets. One such success story within the insurance sector has been that  of the Promina Group in Australia--previously known as Royal & Sun Alliance Australia Holdings Ltd--where Australia's Financial Reform Act in March 2002 had an enormous impact on the company (see Promina project).

So how will the insurance industry, specifically, benefit from this system? Well, there is no doubt that regulation is becoming a more demanding issue with certain regional markets such as Bahrain really beginning to build a well regulated infrastructure. But on a more immediate level, there is the question of employee training.

The majority of insurance companies--certainly those that wish to provide the best services, thus promoting their company to the fore--are keen to ensure staff have the required abilities to compete on an international level. And to achieve this a solid framework of training and education is required.

"As the Middle East market grows so will the impact on the insurance market of increased regulation and compliance," says Moshiry. "It is something that the market should be preparing for in anticipation of future regulations. Certification issues will become more and more important as the market grows, and Saba has proven its very high added value in helping its customers in the FS industry, especially in the insurance area, to comply to certification programmes."

According to Moshiry the company is always keen to achieve improved relations with vertical markets. "Saba utilises best practice throughout all of its vertical market implementations," she says. "Experience gained is shared between clients both within and across sectors. Saba actively works with its strategic partners to develop relationships within industries and across client groups to better benefit the deployment of it's customers solutions."

Installation implications

So what would be the implications of installing such a system, ie how long? How much? And what return what would be the actual benefits of it? Moshiry says that in terms of installing, the system counts on different factors.

"The exact answer is hard to provide, it depends how mature the customer is, and how the client defines its requirements," she says. "Saba can help the customer to write down the RFP. Once Saba is selected as the vendor, and the project starts we have a rapid deployment package that enables the implementation of Saba for several thousands users in less than six weeks."

With regards to cost, the system is also dependent on what the customer actually wants to achieve. "The pricing structure is based on a license cost, says Moshiry. "There is one license for one user, with no time limit or additional cost, except for maintenance. Our tool is a platform. It is used to distribute, store and manage courses, but it has no cost once the solution is deployed.

A hosted solution is also available, the cost will then be by user/year. However, it is not possible to provide prices without having details of a specific project."

A part of the Saba suite of programmes that may be of added interest to insurance companies is Saba Publisher. Publisher is an authoring tool that enables the design and publishing of content, allowing senior staff to create in-house training courses for the general workforce. Courses can be structured to deliver one or more tests whenever appropriate, such as pre-tests, post-tests and intermediate quizzes. When the course is published you can choose to publish to a standards-based format (either AICC or SCORM) so you can track information about your learners' performance.

Learners can launch the course for Saba Learning and track their own progress as well. Test results are automatically sent back to Saba Learning and updated in each learner's profile. Course results can then be viewed from Saba Learning and analysed through various reports.

Despite its partnership with certain multi-national companies in the region, Mina Solution have no definite insurance partners. But Macy Moshiry is confident of the systems appeal.

"The Saba product is evolving. Arabic language is now available in addition to the sixteen languages already supported. In addition to Saba Enterprise Learning, the training management platform, Saba Enterprise Performance is available and increases efficiency of the customers in performance management. Great successes have already been made by this product in the Financial Services Industry," says Moshiry.

"Mina Solutions is actively talking to a number of insurance companies in the Middle East and the interest levels have been very good so far. But as you can appreciate we are not at a point where we can disclose any specific client names."

© POLICY 2004